Rufus thought they were all silly cunts, except Orla. She was different, a princess. Yes, she’d killed Rory, but she’d done it out of loyalty to him. She was damaged, poor love. The other women, they couldn’t hold a candle to her.
It was so easy to charm them into dropping their pants.
A night in a plush London hotel, that was a favourite. Or a mini-break. Then they thought you were serious about them, they started thinking engagement rings, shit like that. Which was a laugh. All he was serious about was causing the Carters maximum pain. Two weeks had gone by since Orla broke into the Holland Park house. Two weeks and not a word from her. He’d been in denial before, but now he knew that Orla was gone. That the Carter bitch had killed her.
Layla went with Precious in the ambulance. She sat there holding her hand but keeping out of the way of the paramedics who were busy working on her.
‘What’s her name?’ the younger of the two asked, while shining a light into Precious’s bruised and slitted eyes.
I don’t know, thought Layla, and wanted to weep. ‘She’s known as Precious.’
He looked at her sharply. ‘Known as?’
‘They don’t use their real names at the club,’ said Layla. ‘In case someone tries to target them. Some weirdo.’
But some weirdo had done that. Targeted beautiful, sweet, bright Precious.
This is all because of me, thought Layla.
The ambulance tore through the night streets of London, and Layla could not avoid thinking, This is all my fault.
‘Call Mum and Dad, tell them what’s happened,’ she’d said to Ellie before she left the Shalimar, and Ellie promised that she would. Neither Dad’s men nor Alberto’s seemed to be about, and that bewildered her, but right now she didn’t care, she was too frantic about Precious. ‘Tell them it was the man from the park.’
Once at the hospital, Precious was quickly transferred on to a gurney and rolled away into the bowels of the place for treatment. Layla wandered into the waiting room and sat down with a thump, feeling all the desperate strength that had sustained her through this ordeal suddenly deserting her.
Don’t mix with the girls, Annie had told her.
She’d thought that was snobbery.
She should have known better.
Annie hadn’t been protecting her with that order. She’d been protecting the girls.
She dropped her head into her lap, feeling the dizziness and clammy sickness suddenly overwhelm her. The blood seemed to roar in her ears as she relived it all. The panic, the fear, Precious on the floor covered in blood.